Il Fornaio’s now-closed Virginia location, pictured in 2007. The Bay Area-born restaurant chain paid $3 million to settle a federal sexual harassment lawsuit.
Jahi Chikwendiu/The Washington Post/Gettu Images
Il Fornaio, an Italian restaurant chain with 15 locations in California and Nevada that was founded in the Bay Area, will pay $3 million to settle a lawsuit by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission alleging “egregious and constant” sexual harassment of female employees, including alleged groping and rape, the EEOC announced Tuesday.
The suit, which the EEOC filed in 2022, alleged that at least 100 employees were impacted by harassment at the company, which is headquartered in Corte Madera and operates six Bay Area locations including in Burlingame, Walnut Creek and San Jose. Female employees, many of them teenagers at the time, allegedly experienced repeated instances of unwanted touching, requests for sexual favors and unwelcome sexual comments since at least 2015, but Il Fornaio failed to properly respond, according to the lawsuit. As a result, several female employees resigned, according to the EEOC.
In an amended complaint filed in 2024, the EEOC’s suit alleged that “male employees at all levels of (Il Fornaio’s) corporate hierarchy,” ranging from the company’s vice president of operations to barbacks at restaurants, participated in creating a hostile work environment.
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“The conduct of these harassers, many of them serial harassers, went unchecked, was open and notorious, and was ratified by higher level management, resulting in a revolving door of female workers who left due to the intolerable working conditions,” the EEOC wrote in the amended complaint. “Defendant’s persistent toleration of sexual harassment and its failure to correct and prevent this harassment continues to this day.”
Il Fornaio’s attorney, Hope Case, said that the company denies the EEOC’s claims. “Il Fornaio takes harassment seriously and will continue to do everything possible to prevent and eliminate harassment in the workplace against all workers,” she wrote in an emailed statement. “The company prides itself on fostering a positive working environment for its employees, which is reflected in the high number of long-term employees and low turnover rate for the industry.” Il Fornaio settled the case, she said, “to avoid the burden, expense, and uncertainty of continued litigation, and has increased its efforts to prevent and eliminate harassment and discrimination of all kinds in the workplace.”
Il Fornaio said in court records the settlement is not an admission of wrongdoing. The company said it “took reasonable steps to prevent harassment and retaliation” and that there was no “companywide pattern or practice of discrimination, harassment or retaliation.”
An early Bay Area location of Il Fornaio in 1995.
LIZ HAFALIA
The alleged conduct spans multiple locations and at least a decade. According to the EEOC’s complaint, in 2019, a teenage kitchen worker at Il Fornaio’s now-closed Palo Alto location told managers she was raped by a male employee; they told her they couldn’t do anything because it happened outside of the workplace, even though she had been harassed for months before, according to the suit. She reported the alleged rape to police, and the male employee was convicted of a sex crime, according to the lawsuit. She continued to experience sexual harassment at Il Fornaio, the suit alleged, and quit in 2021.
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At the Carmel location in 2018, the suit alleged, a female employee’s complaint that a male coworker demanded to see her genitals was ignored by management, the suit alleged.
The EEOC’s amended complaint details alleged misconduct at the Burlingame, Walnut Creek, San Jose and Santa Clara restaurants. In Burlingame, a barback allegedly grabbed a female hostess from behind and rubbed his penis against her, and male employees repeatedly grabbed and rubbed female hostesses’ buttocks, backs and waists. In Walnut Creek, managers allegedly participated in the sexual harassment, according to the lawsuit.
Some workers reported the alleged sexual harassment over the years, according to the EEOC, but “many female employees were not made aware by defendant on how to report sexual harassment, especially when their supervisors were the ones harassing them or when the management at their locations was unresponsive or ineffectual responding to their complaints,” the lawsuit alleges. “Policies and training on the prohibition of sexual harassment and reporting procedures were often ineffective or insufficient.”
The company “eliminated” its human resources department in 2020, leaving employees without a place to report alleged harassment other than to managers, many who were also participating in the harassment, according to the amended complaint.
Il Fornaio was born as a baking school in Italy, and arrived in the U.S. in 1981 with Italian bakeries in San Francisco and Beverly Hills. The company opened its first restaurant, ll Fornaio Cucina Italiana, in Corte Madera in 1987 and continued to expand throughout California, Nevada, Colorado and Virginia. After several ownership changes, its current owner, Japanese company Create Restaurants Holdings, purchased the chain in 2019.
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Il Fornaio has previously faced litigation over sexual harassment claims. In 2020, a former hostess at the Palo Alto location sued the company for alleged wrongful termination and sexual harassment, including a male supervisor who stared at her “while licking his lips” and, on another occasion, “trapped” her in a freezer area, brushed up against her and “grabbed her genitals when she attempted to walk by him;” and a head chef who repeatedly asked to spend time with her outside of work hours, according to court records. The case was later dismissed.
Under a consent decree with the EEOC, which is in place for three years, Il Fornaio must hire an external monitor to ensure its compliance with the settlement terms, conduct an annual audit and review harassment and complaint policies, among other stipulations.
“The EEOC will continue to stamp out workplace sexual harassment wherever it occurs,” Christine Park-Gonzalez, director of the EEOC’s Los Angeles District, said in the agency’s announcement. “We are thankful to the women who came forward and courageously shared their stories so that the EEOC could work towards bringing Il Fornaio into compliance with Title VII.”
Deputy Food & Wine editor Elena Kadvany contributed reporting.
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